The 3rd part of “Jesus fulfills the law.”
Christ fulfilled the law. Now when Christ or Paul talk about the law they are referring to the entirety of the law, both the rules and the institutions which they are connected to. We’ve already shown how Jesus fulfilled other portions of the law here and here. I’m referring, more particularly, to the many rules that God gives in the Old Testament.
Christ obeyed those perfectly. From the Ten Commandments to the laws concerning the clean and unclean. When we come to Christ in faith, we receive everything that he did for us from the beginning of his life to the end of his life, so that we may have perfection in all that we do. That is why our good works are pleasing to God. We have his full righteousness, the whole Christ; so that he counts or sin-filled works as good. God even gives a reward out of the mere grace of God. Knowing this, we cannot but respond with such a joy. Our efforts feel so tiny, almost useless, but Christ is our righteousness.
How does he do this? As we have already mentioned, he sends out his Spirit among us, to guide us and direct us so that as we read in Romans 8:, the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, so that we too may be holy, righteous and blameless, so that we may really do good things before God.
So how do we learn from all those rules of the Old Testament through Christ? How do we order our lives after those laws? We first need to understand, how Christ changed our relationship to the law. Christ freed us from the law. Paul teaches us in Galatians 4 that the people of the Old Testament were under a tutor. That tutor had absolute authority over the Jews. The law taught them and as their tutor demanded obedience.
In Christ, we are freed. We are no longer under the law. Yet we still use the law. For example, Paul uses the law that you should not muzzle your ox to encourage his hearers to provide for their leaders in 1 Corinthians 9:9. You might say that the law is now a mentor. The Spirit teaches us how to apply it to our lives. In Christ, we’ve grown up and now we look with affection to our old tutor, the law, in order to find advice on ordering our lives.
Of course the centerpiece of the law, written by the very finger of God, the Ten Commandments, continue to have an important part in our lives. This is the law of love, the law of Christ, that Christ gives to guide our lives. Christ’s call to live by the fruits of the Spirit cannot be followed without the guidance of the Ten Commandments. This is what we might call the substance of the law. But we do so under Christ and guided by the Spirit. We do not do so under the law.
But other laws of the Old Testament can guide us in how we live our lives as well. We can the example of the Old Testament to bring order to the church and to our individual lives. We’ve already noted how Paul uses the law about muzzling oxen. For example, the practice of daily sacrifices teaches us the practice of daily devotion. No Christian will deny that daily devotions are a good way to order our lives.
The church, as a whole. may decide to have two services on Sunday based on the practice of morning and evening sacrifices. We can also think of the practice of fasting in the Old Testament. A local church may decide to call a day of fasting in order to meet certain problems in the world around them or within the church itself. These are Spirit-led, free choices that the Spirit calls us to do for the sake of destroying the sin that remains in us and for expanding the kingdom of God.
We can learn from the law, as long as we do bind one another’s consciences to the practices that the Spirit has led our church too. We do not argue from the law in order to control one another but in order to encourage and edify one another. As individuals and as communities we learn from the law, but we do so in freedom from the law.
We are not law-led, we are Spirit led. And the Spirit leads us through the word of Christ. The perennial temptation of the church is to go back to the slavery of the law instead of the freedom of the Spirit. That betrays a desire for slavery. Instead look to your wisdom, Christ. He gives you the Holy Spirit. As John teaches us in 1 John 2:20, through that Holy Spirit, you know all things.